Here I will post some short pieces on Sarala Mahabharata. Sarala Das is known as the "aadikavi" (the first poet) of Oriya Literature. He lived and wrote in the 15th Century. Mahabharat is his magnum opus. The episodes in Sarala's Mahabharat are significantly different from those in Vyasa's (Sanskrit) Mahabharat.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

BHIMA AND KRISHNA

There is one similarity between
Bhima and Krishna inSarala Mahabharata (doesn’t it come as a
surprise?): neither can be satisfied. Insatiable, says Sarala, was Bhima’s
hunger for a fight, for food, for sleep and for sex. Wild, full of superhuman
energy, and lacking in patience, this son of god Pavana (Wind) would, unlike
his elder brother Hanuman of another aeon, often thoughtlessly, jump into a
fight. But then Hanuman was a god, a god among gods; Bhima was only the son of
a god. When he fought he fought with hatred; he wanted to feel the warmth of his
adversary’s blood in his hands. Recall his killing of Kichaka. His dead body
was just a huge lump of flesh, so much contempt, rage and hatred had gone into his kiling. Killing the enemy from a distance with an arrow
was not for him. He was still a small child when he disappointed his mother;
she felt certain that he would never be adept at archery because he lacked
intelligence and concentration. He proved her eminently right. Drona once set
up an archery test for his pupils. If the archer lacked in concentration and
focussed vision, he would not be able to hit his target at his very first
attempt. On a branch of a tree, on a hill, the guru placed a bird, almost
invisible amidst the cluster of leaves and asked each of his pupils to tell him
what he saw. The winning answer was Arjuna’s: he said he saw only an eye. The
worst came from Bhima: he said all he could see was the hill! He could be easily
provoked and once provoked he became violent. He would become abusive and could
even attack his adversary. Violence was in his very nature. On this account both
his mother and his elder brother, Yudhisthira, considered him dusta (wicked). His craving for food was
well known. When his mother sent him to the asura, Baka, with a huge amount of
food the villagers had collected for the asura, he was secretly happy. In the
forest he had eaten roots and fruit for too long. He was already gulping the
food when the asura came. As he kept eating, the angry demon showered blows on
him, but he was unmoved. He dealt with him only after he had devoured the food.
On the matter of sleep, a reader of Sarala
Mahabharata would hardly associate long sleep or longing for sleep with
him, but then there is Sarala telling him in so many words that Bhima could
never have enough sleep. As for his sexual conduct, it was above reproach in
the sense that not even once in the narrative did he cast a lustful look at a
woman who was not his wedded wife. His hunger for ever more and more sex would
therefore make sense only with respect to Draupadi. He had wild sex with his
first wife, the asuri woman (demoness), Hidimbaki, but he lived with her only
for a short time.

Warning Duryodhana about
Krishna’s nature, said Sakuni to him: danena
atriputi je manena atriputi / bhagate
atriputi je jnanena atriputi (not content with (ritual) giving, not content
with honour / not content with devotion, not content with knowledge) – one
cannot satisfy him with gifts, honour, devotion or knowledge. However much one may
give him, it would always be inadequate, always fall short.

Krishna had gone to the Kaurava
court as Yudhisthira’s emissary. There he told king Duryodhana that in order to avoid war, all the Pandavas
wanted were just five villages. Duryodhana flatly refused. He wouldn’t give
anything to the Pandavas, he said. Later, outside the court, in private, when Bhishma
and Drona met him and the wise
grandfather told him that it would not be right to send Krishna empty handed,
Duryodhana told him that he was thinking in terms of giving him two villages.

This was where Sakuni said what
is mentioned above. Duryodhana must not give Krishna anything in order to
please him. Because he simply wouldn’t be. Then he told him about the asura king
Bali. Appearing as a dwarf in the venue of the sacred jajna (fire sacrifice) that king Bali was performing, Narayana told
the great asura king that he came from a very poor family and needed a little
piece of land where he would perform his religious rituals; all the land He
required was whatever he would cover by just three steps of His. Bali thought
that the dwarf didn’t know how ridiculously little he was asking for. He told
him that he must ask for much more from him as dana (ritual gift), but the Dwarf avatara insisted that he wanted
nothing more than three steps of land. Bali’s preceptor Sukracharya warned Bali
that the dwarf was Narayana Himself and He had arrived to deprive him of all
his possessions and power. Bali wouldn’t listen; a dwarf is a dwarf, his steps
are small, so how would it matter if the guru was right that that he was
Narayana Himself? But when the time to give dana
came, the Dwarf’s foot were not a dwarf’s foot. Bali was the lord of the bhuloka (earth) and the higher lokas as well. In His two feet the Dwarf
covered all that Bali had. When the third foot emerged from his navel, Bali
offered his head to Him and Narayana despatched him to the netherworld. The
great Bali perished, said Sakuni to Duryodhana, because he wanted to fulfil
Narayana’s demand. Krishna was none other than the same Vamana, he told him and
had now come to dispossess him of all he had. He advised him to give Krishna
nothing at all. If no amount of gift could ever satisfy him, then nothing at
all should be given to him – this was the essence of his logic. If he gave him
just one village instead of two, he told Duryodhana, he would absorb the entire
universe of space in that one village, like what Vamana had done and he would
be left with nothing to even stand on. So he must abandon all thought of
pleasing Narayana with a gift of two villages.

Later when Sakuni repeated the
same argument to Duryodhana in the Kaurava court, Bhishma intervened and told
him that what his narrative was incomplete, so his conclusion, wrong. After
sending him to the patala loka, Narayana
made Bali the Indra there, where he was like Indra of swarga loka in every respect. He told him that in due course he
would be Indra in swarga loka. Not
just that. He Himself left His abode and stayed with him for His love for him.
But this made no impression on Duryodhana; who would sacrifice his today for
his tomorrow? We, the readers of Sarala
Mahabharata, understand Duryodhana, for who knew how to read Narayana’s
mind?

Incidentally, could one say that
there was some uncertainty in the mind of Sarala’s Bhishma, as he completed
Bali’s story? He said it much later, but surely he could not have been oblivious
of it even then. Could one – sura, asura or nara (god, demon and human) really predict the doings of Narayana?
On the battlefield of Kurukshetra he indirectly told Arjuna that things
wouldn’t have been different had Duryodhana given Krishna five villages. Whatever
happened to Bali and Ravana, didn’t Bali die giving (dei mala) and Ravana, not giving (nadei mala)?

Sakuni’s argument was incomplete.
He did not tell Duryodhana how one could not hope to please Narayana with
honour, devotion or knowledge. He must have felt that saying more about
Narayana’s doings was not necessary for him or Duryodhana or for the narrative;
he had achieved his objective – Duryodhana was not going to yield to the desire
of pleasing Narayana. What remained was the Kaurava king’s fear of Narayana’s
displeasure; Sakuni knew how to deal with that. When that issue came up, he handled
it with great success.

Bhima and Krishna were similar in
one respect, but unpack that similarity and you find a great difference.
Bhima’s discontent was with respect to his cravings, of self. He couldn’t get
certain pleasures to the level of satisfaction. In Sarala Mahabharata, it is unclear whether Narayana reallywanted anything. It is just that you can’t give Him anything or do anything
to the level of his satisfaction. In the spirit of our ancient knowledge, all
we can say is the following: He is not pleased if you worship Him, He is not
displeased if you do not worship Him. Then what remains for us? In the context
of Sarala Mahabharata, one can only hope He makes one His Jara!

5 comments:

Very beautiful and finer aspects of Bhima and Krushna's character revealed. Very nicely put. Thank you for sharing. I would like to personally meet and discuss. If you do not mind, would you drop me a line and I will contact you. I seriously like your thinking and blog. Wonderful.

Sir, after seeing your response here I went searching for your email. I think it was classified as Social in Gmail. I have replied back. But not sure if your email address shows up correctly. If you receive my response just reply back and I would know it is working. Most likely I will have to get your address and then figure out how to schedule an appointment with you. I will certainly cherish the moment with you. I have been following your blog for couple of years with respect to Sarala Mahabharata. Hope to see you soon! Warm regards -- Subhranshu

It seems you didn't get my mail. I have got no mail of yours. My mail id is: bn.patnaik@gmail.comWould you please write me at this mail id? If you write, I will also know your email id. And thanks a lot for your kind interest in Sarala Mahabharata. Warm regards, Patnaik